A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Protestantism

  • Cosmic piety

    There’s a lot going on in Douglas Ottati’s Theology for Liberal Protestants–much more than I’m going to be able to cover in a blog post (or several). But as I’m nearing the end of the book, I think what will stick with me most is Ottati’s insistence on a cosmic theocentric piety.* What does this Read more

  • The biblical case for same-sex relationships isn’t new

    It’s great that some theologically conservative evangelicals are making the “biblical” case against Christianity’s historic anti-gay position. There are certainly many people–and not just in evangelical churches–who feel in good faith that they can’t accept a revision of the traditional view without sacrificing their trust in the Bible or other bedrock convictions. But at the Read more

  • Paul Tillich for Reformation Day

    On “justification by grace through faith”: A word must be said about the expression “Justification by grace through faith.” It is often used in the abbreviated form of “Justification by faith.” But this is extremely misleading, for it gives the impression that faith is an act of man by which he merits Justification. This is Read more

  • A liberal revival?

    According to the New York Times, after a period when it was more fashionable to study relatively marginalized religious movements like evangelicalism and Mormonism, historians are turning their attention back to liberal mainline Protestantism. One of the more surprising arguments, made by David Hollinger, is that the legacy of the mainline may be deeper and Read more

  • A few points on “liberal Christianity”

    The events at the recent general convention of the Episcopal Church have generated a wave of the usual outrage/concern-trolling/Schadenfreude over the supposed demise of liberal/mainline Christianity. Conservatives have been riding this hobby horse for years, arguing that while churches that espouse more liberal theological or social positions have seen declines in membership, more conservative churches Read more

  • Do the evolution

    As everyone not living under a rock now knows, in an interview with ABC yesterday, President Obama–who recently had said that his views were “evolving”–announced that he now supports the right of same-sex couples to get married. Some liberal critics complained that Obama’s announcement does nothing to change the status quo, with marriage still being Read more

  • What ails the mainline? (part the millionth)

    A speech Rick Santorum made in 2008 has resurfaced in which he laments Satanic influence on many of the institutions in America. In addition to raising the alarm about the usual bogeyman of liberal academia, he opined that mainline Protestantism “is in shambles [and] gone from the world of Christianity.” This is of course nothing Read more

  • (Re)birth of the Reformation?

    This is a very interesting article about the efforts of the Evangelical (that is, Lutheran) Church in Germany to reestablish itself in the east, after years of suppression under Communism. One idea being floated is to turn Wittenberg into a kind of “Protestant Rome” and to amp up the public face of Protestantism with more Read more

  • The political theology of mainline Protestants?

    This article at Harper’s argues that the rejection of the McCain/Palin ticket by mainstream Protestants that Steve Waldman described is a matter of theological as much as political differences (via Andrew Sullivan): For the mainstream Protestant, Palin is engaging in what Reinhold Niebuhr calls “the idolatry of America.” As Niebuhr would have it, an American Read more

  • Mainliners breaking for Obama

    Interesting column by Beliefnet’s Steven Waldman. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget–what with all the talk about the “liberal mainline”–that mainline Protestants in the pews are not necessarily all that liberal (Bush won the mainline vote in 2004). Indeed, according to Waldman, a little over four in 10 describe themselves as conservative, Read more